yt-mcp-server
yt-mcp-server is a Python MCP server that exposes YouTube-related tools: searching for videos, fetching video and channel metadata, retrieving transcripts (with timestamps), searching within a single transcript, and searching across all videos of a channel for passages matching a query. It can run as a zero-config MCP server (e.g., via uvx) and also supports running a standalone HTTP server using a specified transport.
Score Breakdown
⚙ Agent Friendliness
🔒 Security
Security posture is mostly limited by the tool being described as no-auth/zero-config; this reduces risk of credential leakage but increases exposure of any networked server instance (e.g., if run as HTTP without explicit protections). TLS usage is not specified in the README for the HTTP transport; ensure HTTPS/reverse proxy if exposed. Also, the server relies on third-party upstream sources and libraries (yt-dlp, youtube-transcript-api), so keep dependencies updated and audit runtime logs to ensure no scraped content or tokens are inadvertently stored.
⚡ Reliability
Best When
You want a local or self-hosted agent tool interface to perform YouTube discovery and transcript lookups with minimal setup.
Avoid When
You need strong contractual guarantees around uptime, stable upstream availability, or you cannot handle occasional rate limiting and tool-level failures gracefully.
Use Cases
- • AI assistants that need YouTube video discovery and retrieval of metadata
- • Transcript-based research (find relevant segments with timestamps)
- • Channel-level knowledge search (search across all videos of a creator)
- • Summarization and comparison of creator content across multiple videos
Not For
- • Highly sensitive data processing where you require end-to-end control over upstream sources and strict data handling guarantees
- • Production deployments that cannot tolerate upstream rate limiting or partial failures from third-party YouTube transcript mechanisms
- • Use cases requiring authenticated/authorized access to private or user-specific YouTube resources
Interface
Authentication
README states no API keys or authentication required.
Pricing
No pricing information provided; behavior described as zero-config and local execution.
Agent Metadata
Known Gotchas
- ⚠ Transcript search uses YouTube internal APIs and may rate-limit after many requests in a short period; plan for backoff/retry and fewer queries per session.
- ⚠ Upstream transcript availability can be inconsistent across videos (missing/disabled transcripts, format differences), which may lead to partial or failed tool responses.
Alternatives
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Scores are editorial opinions as of 2026-04-04.